Ars System Guide: Gaming Edition

The Ars System Guide is back, this time with our special gaming edition. If …

As capable as most computers are today, typical OEM systems have fairly limited gaming prowess since it isn't their market. Enthusiasts need more memory, more video card, more processor, more something beyond the basics that usually ship with the average pre-built box. And selecting your own components to fill your exact needs is much more fun and often cheaper once you start talking $1,000+ systems. The various enthusiast System Guides around the Internet can help, but here in our Gaming Boxes Guide, we aim to provide a little more gaming focus than we do in our main three-box System Guide.

Price compression

About this time last year, we saw significant increases in 3D performance as AMD launched their Radeon HD 4800-series (based on the RV770 GPU) cards at very attractive $199 (Radeon HD 4850) and $299 (Radeon HD 4870 512MB) price points. This forced NVIDIA to respond, slashing prices on both their older G92-based parts (8800-series and 9800-series) as well as their new, high-end GT200-based GTX 260 and GTX 280. The realm of single-GPU (graphics processing unit) $400+ video cards was therefore very short-lived.

This time around, we see something similar, yet even more dramatic in some ways. It's especially important because of the effects on the Value Gaming Box end of the spectrum: the Radeon HD 4850 has fallen in price by almost 50% to $100-115, the Radeon HD 4870 has dropped by a similar amount or more to $125-$150, and the somewhat newer Radeon 4870 1GB to $150-170. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260's newer Core 216 version has also plunged to $165-180. If you can stretch a little more, the Radeon HD 4980 is about $200, which is even faster growth than we would have expected in the Value Gaming Box.

Effects are similar on the higher-end products that go into the Performance Gaming Box, but not nearly as dramatic. Minor tweaks to both of AMD and NVIDIA's high-end GPUs result in the RV790 and GT200b, respectively, allowing lower power consumption and/or higher clock speeds. Additional price cuts this June bring the highest-end single-GPU Radeon HD 4890 OC to $250 or less, $50 less than the Radeon HD 4870's original price. NVIDIA's high-end single GPU part, the GeForce GTX 285, is significantly cheaper than the GTX 280 used to be at $315-330, while the GeForce GTX 275 is $210-260.

For the Value Gaming Box and the Performance Gaming Box, this means we get a lot more performance for the same money; breaking things down this time around shows savings all around are significant enough to let us adjust our price points.

Gaming needs wants

Resolution and budget temper most gamers' desires. SLI, Crossfire, quad-core CPUs, SSDs (solid state disks), they're all nice, but not everyone can afford them, and moreso, not everyone needs them.

In the past, where titles such as Origin's Strike Commander pushed even the fastest systems available at the time, today is somewhat different. More than a few games do push the envelope, but if you're gaming only 1680x1050 then odds are good you don't need the highest-end hardware available. At 1920x1200 the most demanding titles can still eat all the hardware you can throw at them, but that all depends just how much the individual user maxes out the quality settings.

If you can afford a monitor capable of 2560x1600 for gaming then you'll probably want all the GPU power you can get, be it from one, two, three, or even four GPU's. You'll also want to make sure it's low input lag, as discussed by Anandtech very recently.

Define your needs and wants, combine them with your budget, and that will help things considerably. Aside from just the video card and the processor, some gamers may want the fastest load times possible, which means going to a SSD—this option is more affordable than before, but it's still a serious investment for a gaming box.

Today's landscape

Previous Gaming Boxes were designed to fit in-between the boxes in the main three-box System Guide (Budget Box/Hot Rod/God Box) at about the$1200 and $2500-$3000 price-points. To reflect current price compression, we've adjusted the price range accordingly. The modern Budget Box in the main System Guide has gotten a little cheaper as well, complimenting the Value Gaming Box's new -$1000 price point. The Performance Gaming Box ends up around $2000-2500 as opposed to $2500-3000 before.

The Value Gaming Box is what a budget-oriented gamer would do if he had a few extra bucks over our main three-box System Guide's Budget Box. Considerable tweaking beyond what we spec is very possible, but we choose to focus on not getting too carried away. A few extra bucks generally go to the video card and the processor, which pay considerable dividends in light of AMD's price cuts this summer.

The Performance Gaming Box is aimed at higher resolutions with multiple GPU's and a fast processor, but we keep things relatively toned-down in this update. Prices on high-end video cards have gone down considerably, giving us room to flirt with SSD's while still reducing the budget compared to the last update. Individual Performance Gaming Box builders will want to carefully evaluate what they plan to play, because not every game scales equally with multiple GPUs or loads significantly faster with a SSD. A nice S-IPS 26" LCD has grabbed our attention as well, but that might be a little too much money to easily justify, even for demanding gamers, as you generally aren't too worried about viewing angles or marginally superior color reproduction in most games.

Think about what you need, and what you can afford, and adjust things accordingly. We aim for the best performance and best value possible in our eyes, and rejoice in the fact that fast video cards just keep getting cheaper!

Gaming gadgets

Potentially necessary accessories for the Gaming Boxes include steering wheels, joysticks, and for the truly elaborate, entire seats. Many gamers live by the mouse and keyboard combination, but a few types of games cry out for their own joystick or yoke or steering wheel.

For steering wheels, Logitech's G25 remains a top choice for the most demanding, along with the Saitek R660GT and the Logitech MOMO for somewhat more reasonable enthusiasts. Joysticks remain a dull part of the market as modern flight sims are relatively few, although there are still quite a few choices.

Joysticks are a much less popular item today. Despite a seemingly large number of choices on the market, we've only really used a handful of the current ones. We still have fond memories of the old 15-pin gameport and the CH Flightstick Pro, Thustmaster F-16, and Logitech Wingman Extreme. Current products exist from Thrustmaster, CH Products, Logitech, and Saitek. The Logitech Extreme 3D Pro, Saitek Aviator, and Thrustmaster T.16000M are all available at fairly reasonable prices. Higher-end, the array of products is far better than the state of today's flight sim market would suggest: the CH Fighterstick, CH Eclipse Yoke, Thrustmaster HOTAS Cougar, Saitek X52 Pro, and a lot more occupy the high end.

Gamepads generally remain reasonably priced, even at the high end. The Logitech Rumblepad 2 and the Logitech Cordless Rumplepad 2 all have their fans, while the Microsoft Xbox 360 Controller for Windows (also in Wireless) is also a solid recommendation. Personal preference probably matters mrore than anything else in gaming controllers, so opinions are probably all over the map.

The last area is mousepads. Some swear by fancy ones, others are less picky. The XTrac Ripper, SteelSeries SP, Nova Raider Game, Razer Goliathus, and a ton of others are on the market. Pair them with the old standby in gaming, the Logitech MX518 for many hours of gaming bliss, or with newer mouse competitors such as the Razer Lachesis, Razer Diamondback 3G, or Microsoft Sidewinder X5. To be honest, many of us are fairly ambivalent as long as we find something we like, or we tend to stick with the MX518.

Hop on over to the Gaming forum on the Ars Openforum for more discussion about what goes well with games.

Recommended operating systems

The only practical choice for a gaming box is Windows. The various flavors of Linux and other OSes will run well on these boxes, but face it: PC gaming is a Windows thing. XP Professional is going the way of the dodo, but that's okay as Vista runs games just fine. To take full advantage of your 4GB of memory, we recommend the 64-bit versions, which seem to be as solid on drivers as the 32-bit version.

While Windows 7 is on the way, it's not too different than Windows Vista is for gaming, at least until we start thinking about future versions of DirectX. Still, with a free upgrade for recent retail purchases of Windows Vista, it is something you should pay attention to.

Windows Vista Home Premium

Vista Home Premium has Aero Glass, Windows Media Center, and a whole host of nice features. Being the latest version of Windows means it gets all of the latest driver updates for gaming goodness.

Windows Vista Ultimate

The fully loaded edition of Vista brings Aero Glass, Windows Media Center, Windows Complete PC Backup, Remote Desktop Connection, and a host of features not seen in lesser versions of Vista. Gaming Box users may not need all of these features, but they're nice to have.

Conclusion

The amount of gaming hardware you can buy today is bloody amazing. We choose to slim down the budget this time around, yet we can still pack an increasing amount of capability into the gaming boxes. We realize some decisions may be controversial, but things are constantly changing; the best thing to do is to stay current and be aware of the games you're going to play to better match your hardware purchases to your gaming desires. We happen to think SSDs are worth the money, others may not—they're welcome to disagree! Things change fast, so pay a little attention before you build!

Knowing that the Value Gaming Box has a more powerful 3D card than most high-end systems had eighteen months ago brings a smile to our faces.

Should you chose to re-read the text, you'll note that at research time, the TX850 is actually cheaper than most of its competition around 600~850W, and it is actually more efficient than its 750W little brother. We do note it is a good 350W oversized, but when you get into PSU's 600W and up, well, let's just say pricing and power delivery capacity do not coordinate in a linear fashion.

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The slight improvement SLI and crossfire gives isn't worth all the bother adequately cooling and powering two gpus.

If you find a single GPU is adequate, the Hot Rod is probably a better fit. I personally find a single GPU adequate for myself, but there are a large enough number of users out there who find multi-GPU solutions attractive.

For the budget box - why didnt you guys use a better CPU, like the X2 955 Black Edition, and a 4870 1GB? Why only a dual core in this day and age?

I agree about SLI, its not worth it. Better to buy a single high end GPU and upgrade later if you need to, you end up with less compatibility, heat and power issues with the same performance. I'd only consider multi GPU if I was gaming at 2560x1600.

Oops-- no, we didn't. I'll talk with the powers-that-be about that, see if we want to change it or leave it...

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why didnt you guys use a better CPU, like the X2 955 Black Edition, and a 4870 1GB? Why only a dual core in this day and age?

Not enough games use more than 2 cores to be worth it-- and more important, the extra clock speed pays off more currently than what the extra cores are worth. The price jump is also substantial if you look at a faster-clocked quad-core.

Might be nice to note that although keyboards are plenty and personal, it is still wise to pay attention. Especially the cheaper and 'non-gaming' keyboards often don't cope to well with multiple simultaneous keypresses, while for certain games (especially the FPS type) this is quite important.

simongoldring:Do a search for hannibals RAM guide for a comprehensive over view of RAM and its functioning. Its a quite a bit in depth though and maybe more than what your looking for, but its still an excellent series. (3 parts). And essentially RAM hasnt changed so the basics in the first part are still as relevant and the 3 part goes into rambus and DDR's differences.

Not to sound like a party-pooper, but as PC gaming is drying up, I'd probably take the $1000, spend $400 on an X-box or PS3, then $600 on all the games I want to play.

It's awesome to salivate over how awesome (and relatively inexpensive) the PC hardware is getting, but it's still a bit of a pain to get things going these days. I installed a new Logitech trackball this weekend, and in order to get it to work half-way decent with Dead Space I had to install the Logitech drivers and screw with the mouse-settings via Logitech, not Vista. Likewise, on some games you have to alter video settings directly via the card's control panel rather than relying on the in-game settings menu. There's still way too much jacking around that has to take place to get some PC games going. And it's really expensive to get a new rig up and running to play a few games when you could literally go out tonight and buy an X-box and games for $1000 and be playing them the rest of the evening instead of putting a computer together.

Granted ... once you get one of these monster gaming PC's together, the thing is practically an island unto itself. I have one myself, and I have it acting as a bittorrent server & world computing grid grinder all while I'm gaming.

As a side note, I think graphics are overrated these days, too. Sure, they're nice, but a lot of companies seem to spend more time on the graphics then they do on gameplay and entertainment factor (like plot). Using Dead Space as my example again, it looks beautiful when the graphics are maxed out. And, it's playable. But, I have a hard time seeing things with all the bloom, glare, shadows, mist and other crap. I turn the graphics down to lowest setting, all that crap goes away, and suddenly I can tell what I'm doing. (Unfortunately, like a lot of ports, it still suffers from crappy FOV syndrome.)

If I were to build a new gaming comp today, I'd only go with the budget-box. I think there needs to be more advancement in computer technology before justifying the other things. I mean, tossing 2+ graphics cards into your comp to get ultra-high resolutions and graphics is a bit hackish. SSD drives are nice, but still too pricey. RAM is cheap, but there needs to be a bigger push to get folks off 32-bit software and onto 64-bit to take advantage of it. If there were a huge array of kick-ass PC games coming out to justify an ultra-rig, then it might be worth it. But the lack of quality PC games (and ports) just doesn't do it in my opinion. I'll stick with my 2yo dual-core for a while.

Originally posted by Tundro Walker:Not to sound like a party-pooper, but as PC gaming is drying up, I'd probably take the $1000, spend $400 on an X-box or PS3, then $600 on all the games I want to play.

I think you are missing the point. For one, PC gaming isnt dead, and it's not going anywhere. Not to mention most people who are into Pc gaming, have already got a rig, so they already have copies of windows, monitors, keyboards, mouse, and maybe even a stack of ram they can include in their next upgrade (assuming they stick with DDR2) so the costs wont be nearly so high.

Also the difficulties you have setting up a trackball are pretty funny. Logitech software is not that complicated, and generally works very well. (I'm using setpoint and wingman gaming software).

I agree that SSD's are overkill, but today's overkill will be tomorrow's standard (once the prices come down).

Also, your 2 YO Dual core is probably still fast enough for most games on the market, pair it with a $100-150 graphics card and you're ready for the average game.

I recently put together a new gaming machine, and it has an i7 920 and 6 GB or ram, and it's worth every penny. When I game, I never have to worry about what is running in the background anymore. I just fire it up. And it's always nice to FRAPS whatever I am doing without batting an eyelash at my FPS possibly dropping. In theory, modern games only need a dual core, but with all the crap windows can be doing in the background ... quad is the way to go.

One thing to note, getting a hold of a good 4890 has been extremely difficult this summer. I have had to settle for a 4870 b/c of it. Which isn't a big deal b/c gaming graphics have plateaued this passed year due to aging consoles. A 4870 is plenty till next summer.

Originally posted by Taracta:Monitor choices are puzzling to me. You can easily get 22" - 25" 16:9 1080P (1920X1080) monitors for under $200.00 and up to 28" for under $300.00. Why the choices for both systems?

Probably because not all of those monitors will be suitable for gaming. For office apps, they're great but for gaming, there's still a performance issue with most sub $200 24"+ monitors and sub $300 27"+ monitors. As with any display technology though, the performance issues are in the eyes of the user. If you can't see the motion blur or the input lag then that does not mean that it doesn't exist. Some are more sensitive to it that others.

I bought a monitor around Christmas of last year and at the time there were only a few 24"+ panels that could produce 5ms refresh. Most were in the 8ms to 12ms range and for me, an 8ms refresh created a noticable motion blur. Even at 22"+ there were few pickings. Based on this article, it looks like 7 months has done the industry wonders. IPS panels were way out of my price range when I looked and I settled on a PVA panel from Dell when they put their Ultrasharp 2408WS models on sale for $300. It's nice to see IPS panels becoming an option though I wonder what happened to the PVA panels as the article only mentions TN and IPS.

Personally, I dislike the compromise of going with a 770 board in the Value rig, especially when you're using the x2 550 processor (and thus, depriving yourself of the possibility of scoring two more cores).

If I were building this rig, I would utilize the Biostar TFORCE TA790GX or the Gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD4P instead. That would give you the ability to unlock, as well as the possibility of Crossfire in the future. And the price premium is offset by using cheaper DDR2 RAM (yes, I know, the price gap is closing, but it's not closed yet, and there's little performance benefit to DDR3).

Originally posted by Your Highness:I think you are missing the point. For one, PC gaming isnt dead, and it's not going anywhere. Not to mention most people who are into Pc gaming, have already got a rig, so they already have copies of windows, monitors, keyboards, mouse, and maybe even a stack of ram they can include in their next upgrade (assuming they stick with DDR2) so the costs wont be nearly so high.

This is true, I just spent $600 to upgrade my rig from an Athlong 64 X2 all the way to a Core i7 machine, only components I couldn't reuse where the ones I bought (mobo, ram and cpu)

Also, part of the charm of being a PC gamer is actually getting your hands dirty under the hood and tweaking to your hearts content, much like tricking out Hot Rod cars, if you don't enjoy the journey, chances are PC gaming is not for you.

Also, I would like to mention that if you are strapped for cash remember you don't have to pay a penny right now for Windows 7 RC and still have 8 to 9 months to save of an OS before you have to install a retail version

My favorite thing about PC gaming is how even one $900 machine can be your game console, media/file server, DVR, jukebox, productivity, and multimedia production box. I understand the draw of a console with it's plug and play simplicity but these days I would rather build something like this that will take care of everything.

hooked up to my HDTV in the living room with a wireless kb/mouse is amazing. I can play Crysis and all of those other "system stress" games easily at 720p and anything less stressful at the native 1080p of the LCD. It cost me basically a $500 upgrade to an older system and while not top of the line anymore will still do anything I ask of it and for the cost of a PS3.

As tempted as I was to buy a new console with the new TV, I couldn't find any games (unavailable for Windows) that were worth that kind of expense. I'll let my friends bring over Rock Band and Wii when we have a party but I'd rather save my cash for one do-it-all device.

Originally posted by Taracta:Monitor choices are puzzling to me. You can easily get 22" - 25" 16:9 1080P (1920X1080) monitors for under $200.00 and up to 28" for under $300.00. Why the choices for both systems?

Probably because not all of those monitors will be suitable for gaming. For office apps, they're great but for gaming, there's still a performance issue with most sub $200 24"+ monitors and sub $300 27"+ monitors. As with any display technology though, the performance issues are in the eyes of the user. If you can't see the motion blur or the input lag then that does not mean that it doesn't exist. Some are more sensitive to it that others.

I bought a monitor around Christmas of last year and at the time there were only a few 24"+ panels that could produce 5ms refresh. Most were in the 8ms to 12ms range and for me, an 8ms refresh created a noticable motion blur.

The monitors I have seen have a maximum of 5ms with quite a few at 2ms. These are new products given they are 16:9 aspect ratio monitors and not the older generation 16:10 aspect ratio monitors which are recommended in the article. Even Anandtech recommends 16:9 aspect ratio monitors in their list and I have a feeling that they considered at least input lag in their ratings. I have further issues with the article but the monitor choices was the most puzzling for me.

The other is if you are using an AMD platform for gaming you should at the minimum be using a triple core CPU since there are Games that will fully use 2 cores and having the extra core for background programs is a godsend. This especially goes for Black Editions as 3 core Black editions are not much more than the 2 core.

The monitors I have seen have a maximum of 5ms with quite a few at 2ms

That's merely response time, you're forgetting about another important measre: input lag.

Are you saying that the new monitors would have greater input lag than the older monitors you suggested?

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This especially goes for Black Editions as 3 core Black editions are not much more than the 2 core.

The clock speed hit for your money is still substantial, and as such, we don't think it's worth the sacrifice.

2.8GHz Black Edition Phenom II X3 (3 cores) @ $119.00 vs. 3.1GHz Black Edition Phenom II X2 (2 cores) @ $99.00? This totally depends on how high these Black Editions will run since they are unlock it's just a simple multiplier change. I am sure you can get 3.2GHz out of the 2.8GHz Black Edition Phenom II X3.Taken at the default settings you lose 0.3GHz(300MHz) and gain a core for $20.00. I don't think this is a bad trade-off for a budget gaming system going into the future.

As a long time gamer and 10 key abuser I mouse left handed though I'm right handed. I hate using the letter keys for movement, since Marathon I've used the arrow and 10 key for all weapon change and movement while mousing left handed for direction and main weapon fire. Much easier on my hands and harder to mess up than multiple button mice.

@Ancalagon My core2 at 3ghz runs a lot of my games faster than my i7-920 @ 2.66. It just boils down to which games and if you use it for other things than gaming. My friend Mike and I are always going back and forth on scale vs speed.

Logitech software is not that complicated, and generally works very well.

While you read my statement as "idiot noob can't setup a freaking trackball", you failed to understand that the point I was making was setting up peripherals on a PC are still more annoying than they should be in the 21st century. You don't hear folks on an Xbox or PS3 complaining about having to setup their controller in the main OS, then having to install some proprietary drivers to get it to work better for a specific game. Nor do you hear them have to cut out of the game's visual settings to independently setup the visuals on the graphics card.

Gaming-wise, most PC games I've played recently (you're right, my 2yo rig can still play games ... the curve on computing is getting closer to a cusp), have either had major port issues (crappy FOV, horrible controls, can't re-assign certain keys, forced to login to Xbox account just to play solo, etc), or were just lackluster (Crysis, Far Cry 2 ... I mostly FPS). There's more gaming goodness getting cranked out for consoles than for PC. And, a lot of PC games are merely ports, and half-assed ones at that.

So, the main point I was trying to make was if you wanted a purely gaming experience with little fuss and more game options (system-dependent), you could get a console for a lot less and use the extra cash to buy games.

However, as others (and I) said, the great part about a gaming PC is that it can multi-purpose as so much more more: torrent server, audio/video editor, home office, etc. But it still takes more of a learning curve than the average gamer has to build a gaming rig. Average gamer just wants to plug and play. They don't want to get their hands dirty with which researching parts, finding out which place offers them for the best deal, trying to figure out how it all goes together, calculating how big of a power supply they need to run it all, etc, etc. Developing for PC has ostracized it a bit in the gaming circle, and since it's easier to get a console than it is to build a gaming rig, that has also helped shrink the PC gaming market. Those points support why I think someone who just wants to game should just get a console.

Average gamer just wants to plug and play? Average gamer doesn't read Ars so who cares.

Let those who want to be stuck with 1280x720 resolution and $40 a year subscriptions just to play games online and $90 wireless USB adapters and ridiculous hard drive prices stick with their XBoxen.

The people here who are capable of putting a computer together and *gasp* configuring controls will enjoy playing not just ports but original games in *actual* HD with benefits like custom map and mod support and mouse and keyboard controls where it counts.

The majority of games that I play are simulators, Roller Coaster/Railroad Tycoon, SimCity, Civilization and C&C play much better on PCs than the consoles. I made the mistake of getting FFXI for the playstation, $660 in cost to play one game on the console and I hated it. Plays much better on the PC.

On the flop side, I can't imagine playing Teken or Metal Gear on a PC without a custom controller. The keyboard just can't take the abuse unless you get crazy with it j;-)

I borrowed a Xonar soundcard from a friend recently as it sounded fantastic when he played music. Really the best sound quality I've heard coming from a PC. So I swapped out my Creatives X-Fi for the Xonar and yes, music sounds much better.

But gaming sounds worse. Much worse, I turned off the rear speakers in the end as the '3d' effects were just too annoying. I think the Xonars only do EAX v2 where are proper X-fi's are up to v5 now. Seriously, if you're building a gaming PC you have to have something with an X-fi in it. And yes, I'm looking at the Prelude now...

Tundro- go play the incredibly popular Team Fortress 2 on your console, ANY console...oh wait, you can't!

It's funny people talk about consoles, but you don't need one to do email and school/work/life stuff. In today's world you need to have a PC, so why not use it to game and all the other things you need it for.

I'm confused about the P183 upper fan comment. What did they change that makes it so bad? From the pics I have seen it looks pretty much the same as my P180.

Holy shit, what could have possibly made them think orange was the best choice for the Acer G2 24" LCD.